On May 9th, at the midpoint of the Saint John conference at our Annual General Meeting, I officially retired as the President of ACCES. The past 7 years have been a roller coaster of challenges and exciting triumphs, for the original foundation committee, and then the new Executive Board of the Society.  I leave the post with a lifetime worth of great memories and a sense of tremendous accomplishment. We have created a healthy and vibrant organization where nothing existed before.

I am proud of a lot of things with respect to ACCES. Oddly one of the things that I am most proud of is something that we rarely discuss and never advertise. The society has approx. 120 members. More than a third of all the CE professionals in Atlantic Canada belong. We have a member in New Zealand, and several elsewhere in Canada. We grow every year.  And, we have no membership chairman or membership committee. People join ACCES because it has value to them. They believe in what ACCES stands for. They believe in what ACCES does. The society thrives without canvassing people to boost membership. It thrives because we have created something important. That is something to be truly proud of.

I am leaving an awesome (over used word but appropriate in this case) Executive Board that has had to grow in size again to accommodate the folks who want to be involved. John Inch has taken on the rewarding roll of President of the Society. He will do an outstanding job.  I am excited for what lies ahead for ACCES.

To Dave Hancock, Paul Auffrey, Paul Verboom, Jason Symmonds, Dave Melnick, Peter Butt, Sean Nobles and Steven Lockyer – Thank you. You guys rock – none of this would be possible without you, truly excellent exec members over the years. Also, thanks to all the conference teams who have carried the flag and did the hard work. And, again to Paul Auffrey, who started it all with 12 years of educational seminars in Moncton. Paul is man of vision who has left a permanent mark on Clinical Engineering.

I wish you all the best and thank-you for the good wishes and kind words.

Sincerely

Jeremy Dann